IPS is honoured to present Fabiana Frayssinet as our IPS Star of the Month

Fabiana Frayssinet

Fabiana Frayssinet, a talented Argentine multimedia journalist, began her relationship with IPS in 1989 in Guatemala, then reported from Brazil for many years and later from Argentina, where she now lives, although she still frequently travels and works in Brazil.”IPS was my training and a way of doing journalism that I even transferred years later and throughout my career to my television work and my most recent experience as an institutional communicator,” says Fabiana, who is as far from a “desk-bound journalist” as you can find. An intrepid traveller who has lived among remote indigenous communities, and with groups of women who, with their small enterprises, changed the lives of their families and communities, Fabiana tells their stories in lively articles and videos that focus on the essential: people and their realities.

In 1995, she began to combine her work for IPS with the then new 24-hour TV news channel CNN en Español, first in Guatemala and later in Brazil. Twenty-four years later, she returned to her country of origin, Argentina, while keeping one foot in her beloved Rio de Janeiro. “IPS has been the only constant in my life, the only thing that remains,” she reflects.

In December of 2015, Fabiana achieved a personal and professional milestone with a reporting journey along the banks of the Tapajós River in the Amazonian Brazilian state of Pará with her adult son, a professional cameraman, producer and photographer. They then spent three days in the indigenous village of Swré Muybu, which was to be flooded – like many others – to build a hydroelectric power station, which would destroy unique ecosystems and centuries of culture.

A year later, the project was halted, and Fabiana hopes that her stories and videos for IPS contributed to that result. “With my son, I shared what the passion for journalism stands for, at least for me: to witness history, to live it, to immerse yourself in it, and to try to change some of its twisted lines,” she says.

She had a very similar experience with another story that she exposed in January 2014 for IPS in Malvinas Argentinas, in the province of Córdoba: The struggle of local people against biotechnology giant Monsanto and its project to built a plant for producing transgenic seeds. In November 2016, the transnational company withdrew its plan and left the facilities half-built. “Being a journalist had made sense,” she says.

“Listening to women, to communities, to those who fight for their rights and telling their stories is my greatest pleasure as a journalist,” concludes Fabiana. “IPS allows me that, and that’s why it’s my home.”

Fabiana Frayssinet, IPS microphone in hand, filming the impact of an Amazon highway